Rome & Vatican City
Finally, after 35 years on planet Earth, I get to see Rome.
I was thrilled to “do as the Romans do,” as the saying goes, whatever that meant, as I was surely going to find out…
But I never did. There are no Romans in Rome. The Eternal City is not an actual city. It’s Disneyland but replace rides with ruins. Not a single person walking the cobblestone streets is from here — we’re all tourists following your basic sightseeing path from the Colosseum on one end up to the Vatican at the far other.
Every establishment is a tourist trap. Pakistanis (I think) running both restaurants and the gift shops, at least three on every block. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Patience and commitment are demanded if you want to find a decent spot to eat here.
Even neighborhoods past the old city like Trastevere and Prati were full of tourists. I get that I’m one myself so I really can’t complain. It’s just that Rome held so much promise for me as a city beyond its wonders and ruins. I’d arrived here naively thinking this would be a major metropolis that operates like any other, but just with the added decor of the Pantheon in full view behind a local while he takes his weekly Zoom meeting.
Of course, I’m embellishing a little. My girlfriend found a couple good local restaurants and at one point I did see two men in full suits (presumably working real jobs!) walking an alley — perhaps a rarer sight than admission to the Colosseum can get you.
So Rome is Disneyland and Disneyland is great for a few days. And once we accepted that, my girlfriend and I had a great time. We did almost 25K steps per day (35K was our peak) visiting all the major sites. We paid for a pass that got us into the Colosseum, the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill. We posed in front of the Pantheon. We climbed the Victor Emmanuel II Monument for free (excluding bathroom) and got a great view of the city from atop. We did the guided tour of the Vatican Museum, only to ditch the guide after thirty minutes to wander the halls and marvel at the grandiosity of the Catholic Church’s power and artistic vision at our own leisure.
The Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica in particular awakened something deep in me — I feel like I now need to create something (probably written) that’s bursting with meaning and beauty. On that day I saw God and I’m absolutely not referring to that one guy who yaps too much in the Bible. I’m speaking of the great Michelangelo! How the hell did one man paint all that? And on his back or upright craning his neck to the ceiling every day for four years? And to top it all off, the man didn’t even consider himself a painter? (He saw it beneath him and that he was first and foremost a sculptor.) I can’t even do the thing I consider myself first-best at well. And this man was casually making the greatest piece of art in human history while complaining — via perfect poetry, yet still another art form — that he’d rather strike a marble block instead. SMH.
The level of awe we were all in
I saw God at the Sistine Chapel but he wasn’t on the fresco
Of course Michelangelo was chief architect of St. Peter’s Basilica and designed this dome
But as awestruck as I was by Michelangelo and the Basilica and the rest of the art and display of the Vatican, I was equally unnerved by the contradiction of it all. Wasn’t it the very message of this Jesus guy that the Catholic Church worshipped so, that mankind help the poor and less fortunate? I don’t remember any sermons on spending the equivalent of billions of dollars in today’s money to build the most grand and powerful structures and art pieces just so the church’s most senior leaders could live among and indulge in them. (For example, the famous Raphael Rooms were commissioned simply for the then-living Pope to have something nice to look at while taking his meals.) At any rate, it was clear to me after spending the day at the Vatican that the Catholic Church's marketing team deserves an almighty raise.
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So that about sums up my Rome/Disneyland leg of the trip. Amazing experience but probably wouldn’t go back the next time I’m in Italy.
The final word: yes obviously, fantastic wonders but I do wonder if Rome is the quarterback who peaked in high school and still can’t move on. The curse of Rome is that its past was so grand that the present is stuck safeguarding it while the future, or lack thereof, pays the price. Brain drain — young talent leaving home for greener work pastures — is very real in Italy, and probably plays a huge part in explaining the country’s stagnant economy. That said, in the meantime you can be sure that tourists like me will continue flying in from all over the world to pack the Roman streets, ready to foot the bill.